Tag Archives: social experiment

I am almost at a loss for words. I don’t really know how to describe my date with The Dater. I was so perplexed I completely forgot to take a photo during our date, so his photo is off of the David’s Tea website (one of our many stops in the evening, and so yummy). It was either one of the best dates of the month, or one of the worst. I should start from the beginning…

I met him on OkCupid, there were three messages, then I told him about the blog/book and what I am doing with the dating. He responded with: “wow, what a douchebag move”, that he’s offended it’s not on my profile and that I’m just using him for an experiment (surprisingly the first guy to respond negatively). But, then said he’d still go on a date. We went back and forth. Him assuming all guys would be pissed off at me and the ones that agree are guys who can’t get dates anyhow, and me explaining that actually most guys are interested in what I’m doing, and the ones I chose to go out with are successful men who can get dates and are interesting in dating me for me. I told him he could go on a date with me if he wanted to, but I didn’t want or need a ‘charity’ date with someone who would be angry with me the whole time. I’m not sure what made me keep responding, but there was something about him I found challenging and interesting. Then he said he was busy until the end of the month and I figured I’d never hear from him again.

Well, I did and we set up the date for last night. He offered to pick me up from my house. I was already weary of the date, so there was no way I was going to give him my address. I even told a friend where we were going, just in case he ended up going crazy on me and I needed someone to rescue me. I don’t really know what it was about him, though, but I still wanted to find out what he was about.

We ended up spending just under four hours together, talking the whole time – Indian food at King Palace (amazing food on Church, east of Yonge), walking to the Cameron House (we got there between sets of live music, so just had a drink), walked to David’s Tea, people watched, then ended the night with a final drink at the Elephant & Castle pub. The Dater (he is an active dater, even admitting to needing cheat sheets when he dated a lot years ago to keep the girls straight – he has recently broken up with a long-term partner, so is back to dating) told me tons about his life and I also shared more than I normally do on a first date. He has a sarcastic, dry sense of humour that makes for really interesting conversations paired with my gullible nature. He made me laugh a lot (especially when he said I was very innocent – little does he know…). I think we grew on each other, considering we were both a little weary of the situation at first.

The weird thing is, I felt a bit like I was in a social experiment of his own. He is definitely an expert in dating and had ways to ask questions to get the responses he wanted to assess me. And his paranoia about my experiment started to make me paranoid – was this a game for him?

At the same time, he challenges and intrigues me. I had a lot of fun. And he’s pretty cute. He was definitely one of the most interesting dates I’ve had. I want to hang out with him again to figure him out a bit more. And I feel like he could teach me a thing or two about the art of dating (a skill I’m not sure I’ve learned, even after twenty-six days of dating – but then, maybe being genuine and the ability to connect with people are the only skills I need).